Point 9 Constants, parameters, numbers (GHG Emissions)

Numbers are last on Meadow’s list of leverage points. Diddling with details, arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Probably ninety-five percent of our attention goes to numbers, but there's not a lot of power in them.  Not that parameters aren't important—they can be, especially in the short term and to the individual who's standing directly in the flow particularly people in Ashville, NC or Florida West Coast . Numbers rarely changes the system. Take for example the most important number that comes to mind when discussing adaption to climate change, Green House Gases (GHG) described as CO2 equivalent emissions that affects the global warming scenarios. This is a number that is has been historically attracting a lot of attention to track, count, measure, and reduce.

If the system is chronically stagnant (for example the ridiculous reliance on fossil fuels for energy sources), parameter changes rarely kick-start changes necessary and needed to curb climate change. If it's wildly variable (aka., till now major corporations in top global 350 are still revising their estimates of CO2e emissions up and down and sideways, even changing past years estimates and changing future years estimates, not to mention that we are almost 3-5 years away from having a full and accurate accountability for all Scope 3 upstream and downstream CO2e emissions), e.g. this don't usually stabilize the system. If it's growing out of control (such as currently governments are getting into a national or regional trade protection schemes to curb international trade advantage from not pricing CO2e emissions into their export pricing, this not to mention that CO2e pricing is all over the place from zero, non-existent (denial that there is a cost to it in the first place), to $120/CO2e ton, Numbers don't put brakes in Climate Change.

There is an argument thought that CO2e emissions numbers can become leverage points when they go into ranges that kick off one of the items higher on this list (points from 8 to 0). System goals are parameters that can make big differences. For a decade at least we have been trying to account for CO2e tirelessly and still the global is getting warmer. Things are getting worse faster, every day we hear about new tipping points that we already breached through, new records breaking, new species getting extinct, more severe weather systems including more intense and frequent hurricanes, floods, etc.

Numbers can be helpful if they are critical numbers, such as Interest rates that creates positive feedback loops. System goals are parameters that can make big differences, i.e., critical numbers. Sometimes a system gets onto a chaotic edge, where the tiniest change in a number can drive it from order to what appears to be wild disorder. This makes it a critical number. So, is CO2e emissions a critical number?

Probably the most influencing factor in making a number, critical is the length of delay in a feedback loop. If the delay in feedback is too long, the number becomes less critical. Now lets look at the time horizons we are looking at for global warming scenarios and CO2e reductions trajectories, in years 2030, 2040, 2050, 2080, 2100 (too long). The most effective critical numbers are is when there is an immediate feedback loop, something like drop in interest rates and the stock market immediate reaction (same day), unemployment records (within a month hopefully), or inflation reduction (maybe in the quarter after announcement of interest rates). This where the Numbers would have an effect on Places to intervene in the system that are down the list such as Point number 7 “Regulating negative feedback loops” or Point number 6 “Driving Positive Feedback loop”.  Another example is changing the temp on the A/C thermostat in your house to adjust temp to appropriate range. If it takes 24 hours (like next day) do you think this is effective?

Delays in negative feedback loops cause oscillations. If you're trying to adjust a system state to your goal, but you only receive delayed information about what the system state is, you will overshoot and undershoot. Let’s take the example of the thermostat adjustment, if you don’t feel that the room temp is adjusted quickly (like within minutes 5-15 max) you would attempt to reduce the temperature gauge further to get to a comfortable level whether or not in the range, if it gets too cold you would then raise it up quickly.  These systems oscillations are evident in systems where it takes too long to provide a feedback, a great example is the building of a new nuclear power plant, it would take years of capital investment to build a new one with (expected) delays that most of the time extend to years, and with price increases that (expected) to be in the range of 57% on average. It would take 7- 8 years to build and find out that it increases the electric rates that the utility charges to its customers. A long delay feedback process is not effective mode of system change.

Let’s take the possibility (or aspiration) or even imagination (fiction like) that information about CO2e emissions and its reduction would immediately reduce global warming like if we do X CO2e reduction per month, we will get x reduction of global warming immediately next month.  If our ability to respond and to adjust our CO2e emissions worldwide is fragmented at best, with no clear trajectory, 3-7 % of the Global 350 companies are somehow on track but the rest of the world is not. So, our collective response is not there. It would only be effective if we imagine that the UN has a control center that controls all of our CO2e emissions of the human life and it has the gauges to increase and reduce at will, then maybe we have an effective system, but as you  can see this is Sic-Fiction at best. For a solution to be effective, information is timely, and your response is timely too.

Delays that are too short cause overreaction, oscillations amplified by the jumpiness of the response, that is way we are not seeing the world jumping in response to climate change, because the delays are so slow (like since 1850s industrial age) the climate change feedback is giving us signals that took us decades to understand since 1960s.  Delays that are too long  cause damped, sustained, or exploding oscillations (take the case of business oscillating responses such as CR, CSR, Sustainability, DEI, etc.) , depending on how much too long and we are talking here of centuries and decades. At the extreme they cause chaos (which I think that this is the were we are at right now). Chaos is not a bad thing, it is just in contrast to balance, structure, stability.  Delays in a system with a threshold like ours (planet earth), a danger point (100s of tipping points), a range past which irreversible damage can occur (already happening), cause overshoot and collapse.

Delay length would be a high leverage point, except for the fact that delays are not often easily changeable. Things take as long as they take, it took us almost half a century to get the science behind the fact that there is climate change. You can't do a lot about the maturation time of a child, or the growth rate of a forest. It's usually easier to slow down the change rate (positive feedback loops, higher on this list), so feedback delays won't cause so much trouble. Critical numbers are not nearly as common as people seem to think they are. Most systems have evolved or are designed to stay out of sensitive parameter ranges. So, you can say the Earth will adjust and adapt to stay within sensitive parameter ranges, and humanity will adjust or adapt to live within the new parameters that the climate change present to us. Mostly, the numbers are not worth the sweat put into them.

While this may sound like a very pessimistic point of view, it is a starting point for looking at what would really work which will come with my review of the next place to intervene in the system